World's sweetest long-distance couple travel 10,000 miles separately every year then return to nest to mate

Here’s a love story to melt the iciest of hearts – a pair of ­penguins that have stayed ­together for 16 years.

The love birds have been side by side for most of their breeding lives.

Forced to migrate thousands of miles every winter, every summer they return to their nest – and to each other.

Their happy feat has astonished experts. Dr Pablo Garcia Borboroglu, who has been leading a long-term study on the couple’s Magellanic penguin colony, said: “The bond they have is incredible.

“They are a very loyal couple. Each breeding season they come back to the same nest and to the same ­partner. It is a beautiful story.”

Magellanic penguins usually only stay together for five to 10 years. The birds search for a new partner if their mate dies or have a penguin “divorce” if they failing to breed and go off to find a new ­partner.

The study has monitored the 100,000-strong colony on the Patagonian coast of Argentina for 30 years, putting metal identity bands on the flippers of half the birds to follow their progress.

The flightless birds have to migrate to warmer waters for six months every winter, swimming tens of thousands of miles. It is not yet known whether the ­couples journey together or separately.

But every summer for the past 16 years this male has returned to ­reclaim his burrow and waited ­patiently to reconnect with his partner.

Quick peck: Getting close

Magellanics are able to pick each other out from the rest of their colony by their call alone, said Dr Borboroglu, who is president of the Global

Penguin society. Once reunited, they groom each other to re-establish their bond before mating. Once they have successfully bred, they work together as a team to care for their chicks.

Females typically lay two eggs and each parent take turns standing over the eggs while the other goes out to sea to find fish and squid.

Dr Borboroglu added: “After an incubation period of six weeks the chick will hatch. But their work doesn’t stop there. They will spend another month all together as a family.

“It is unbelievable how far Magellanic penguins swim – and each breeding season they come back to the same nest and to the same partner. It’s amazing.”

Female Magellanics start to breed at five years old and the males at seven. They typically live for another 20 years after that. Until recently nothing was known about the birds’ movement when they migrate each winter. Whenever Dr Borboroglu and his team tried to follow they would quickly lose track of them.

But now they have fitted lightweight satellite positioning tags to 15 of the birds – dubbed VIPs, or Very Important Penguins – and the colony’s epic travels have finally been uncovered.

Every year in March they migrate to the South Western Atlantic off the coast of Brazil. They cover around 10,000 miles – the distance from London to Cape Town – eating and sleeping at sea.

On top of that they swim nearly 200 miles away from the colony while their chicks are incubating, and then they travel around 60 miles to find food for their young.

Dr Borboroglu, who will reveal his full findings in a book published next year called Penguins: Natural History and Conservation, said he will continue to study the penguins’ behaviour at sea – and hopes the long-standing couple’s romance has a happy ending.

He explained: “I am hoping further analysis of our satellite data will reveal whether the penguins meet up in the ocean and what dangers are out there for them – such as shipping routes or oil production.

“Penguins help provide a valuable insight into how healthy are oceans are as their numbers drop if there are not enough fish for them to eat.

“And of course I want to find out what happens next year to our pair of love birds – who I hope will grow old together.”

The amazing loyalty of these two is in stark contrast to Emperor penguins, which featured in the 2005 ­documentary March of the Penguins narrated by Morgan Freeman. Emporers are known for being ­serial monogamists – faithful for only one breeding season. Once the female penguin has laid her egg she carefully transfers it to her mate who then keeps the egg warm by ­tucking it under his skin until it hatches.

The female then returns to the sea where she spends two months feeding before going back to take over.

There are 18 penguin species in the world – five of which are deemed to be endangered while six are classed as vulnerable.

Numbers of Magellanic penguins have dropped dramatically since the turn of the century, with some colonies having halved in the past 15 years due to threats from oil spills and falling fish numbers. There are thought to be around 1.2 million left in the world, all living on the coasts of Argentina and Chile, but little has been known about them – until now.